Juneau Heat (17 page)

“Ditto.”
Kotori’s answer was more a snap, filled with anger and impatience.

She reached
her hand out to him, and he took it, brought it to his nose, and breathed deep.
Birk slipped from the chair to the bed and drew her onto his lap. He buried his
nose in her neck.

They act like they love me. Why don’t they
say it? Why don’t they let me stay?

Her heart
shattered, and she didn’t mean to do it, but she started to cry. Birk crushed
her in his arms, and Kotori drew the covers around her. For a long time, they
stayed in that position, until she drifted off to sleep.

* * * *

Once again
Shiya woke from a long sleep. This time, a noise jarred her awake. Her mouth
felt like cotton, and her muscles hurt no less. She rubbed her eyes to try to
get the sleep out of them, and the pounding came again. She sat up and scanned
the room to find she was back in her suite, in bed. Her heart plummeted.

“I know
you’re in there, Shiya. Open this damn door!”

Kasen.
She
slid from the bed and looked around for clothes. An outfit lay neatly folded on
the chair with her cell phone on top. The guys. She noticed they’d powered off
her phone, probably to allow her to get some rest. She smiled, her eyes growing
wet. She would not cry, no matter what. Her decision had been made, and now was
as good a time as any to let Kasen know that.

She pulled
on panties, jeans, a bra, and a long-sleeved shirt. “Hold on, Kasen,” she
shouted and darted into the bathroom to brush her teeth. When she thought she
looked presentable enough, including boots on her feet, she went to answer the
door. Making the man wait this long, he’d probably be in a sour mood, but that
couldn’t be helped.

Shiya swung
the door open and gasped. “Shae!”

Her sister
darted into the room and scooped Shiya into a tight hug. “Hey, girl.”

Shiya
grabbed her hand and dragged her over to the couch to sit down. “I thought you
were in Maine. What in the world are you doing all the way out here?”

Shae rolled
her eyes. “Drama queen over here made me come. He said you needed my help.”

Kasen
stalked around the room, checking closets as if he thought she hid shifters in
them. His black mood radiated off of him until Shiya wanted to scream at him to
get out. She turned back to her sister, who traveled so much, she didn’t get to
see her as often as she liked. They talked on the phone daily, though, and when
Shae had time in the evenings, they Skyped.

“Sweetie,
where were you the last few days?” Shae asked her.

Shiya
looked at Kasen, who’d gone still, and then back at her sister. “I . . . I was
doing my job.”

“Yeah,
fucking those things,” Kasen snapped.

Shae glared
at him. “Get out.”

“Excuse
me?” Kasen stood over the two of them, his brows dropping low and his lips
tightening. A nerve jumped in his jaw. “Maybe I need to remind you, Shae, that
you—”

“Maybe I
need to remind
you
that I don’t
answer to you, and that bullying shit you do with Shiya won’t fly with me. I’ll
beat you down and send you home to your wife. Don’t play with me, Kasen,
because I’m not the one. Now let me talk to my sister alone!”

He stabbed
a finger toward Shae. “You’re pushing it, girl, pushing it hard. You better
watch the way you talk to me.”

She stared
him down, and Kasen spun on his heel and left the suite, slamming the door
behind him.

Shiya let
out the breath she didn’t realize she’d held. “Damn, you’re good. Can you
really beat him?”

Shae
laughed. “Girl, no, he’s vicious in a fight, but you can’t let him bully you.
Kasen won’t go but so far. He knows Dad would cut his balls off if he hurt one
of us. So aside from that, what’s going on, Shiya? Kasen told me something I
didn’t like to hear. I especially didn’t like getting it from him and not you.”

Shiya
couldn’t meet her sister’s eyes. “Kasen should get his mouth off my business.”

“It’s not
just your business, is it? I mean, you’re out here on a job. You begged Dad to
let you do it. I knew it would be hard, but I was confident you could pull it
off.”

“And now
you’re not?” Shiya rose, getting her back up.

Shae
grabbed her wrist and tugged her down. “Don’t get your panties in a wad, Miss
Missy. Just tell me straight. Did you have sex with those monsters?”

“They’re
not monsters!”

“Shiya.”

She sighed
and dropped her head into her hands. “Shae, they’re not. They’re men who happen
to be able to shape-shift into polar bears.”

“Do you
hear yourself?”

Shiya
looked up. “Haven’t you ever been tempted?”

Shae
laughed. “Of course! Are you kidding me? They’re all sexy as hell. It’s like
the gene guarantees they will have bodies a woman wants to lick day and night.
My job has me kissing one of them every now and then, and let me tell you, not
one does it wrong. But at the end of the day, I know what they are. I
know
their kind tortured and killed our
mother.”

“So all
humankind should be punished—no
killed
—because
of the murderers.”

“Not the
same.”

“How?”
Shiya faced her sister down and waited for Shae to give evidence that would
change her mind or destroy the love she felt for Birk and Kotori. “Did you know
Dad and Kasen agreed to kill their entire families, even people who are not
shifters?”

Shae
gasped. “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m
not. Kasen told me himself. I thought he was just saying that to get to me, but
he said Dad thought it was a great idea so we don’t have to revisit places
after a couple generations when a new shifter is born. What about the
innocents? What about the children? We will be no better than what we’re trying
to eradicate from the earth.”

“We’d be
murderers ourselves,” Shae agreed. “This is the first I’m hearing about this,
but you bet your ass I’m going to bring it up in the family meeting next week.
I’ll put a stop to it, and I’ll get Sakura to help.”

Shiya blew
out a breath, relieved. “Good.”

Her sister
laid a hand on Shiya’s knee. “Sweetie, that doesn’t change the fact that those
two guys . . . What were their names?”

“Birk and
Kotori.”

Her sister
gaped, and Shiya frowned.

“What?”

“You love
them. I heard it in your voice. You actually love them—
both
!”

Shiya stood
and rushed to the balcony door as if she had some urgent business there. When
she swung open the door, cold air swept in, clearing her mind and calming her
down. She closed it after several minutes and faced her sister. If she could
convince Shae of her seriousness, then the rest of the family would come
easier. Not because Shae was hard, but because she loved her the most.

“I’m not
turning them over,” she said. “Yes, I love them. Whether you think it’s wrong
or not, I do. I won’t let Dad and Kasen kill Birk and Kotori.”

“Do they
love you?”

Shiya
gritted her teeth. “This isn’t about whether they love me.”

“So they
used your body and then threw you away.”

“That’s not
how it is, Shae. You don’t know them like I do.”

“You said
that about Joe in the beginning.”

Her sister
might as well have stabbed her in the heart. Shiya balled her hands into fists
at her sides. “I’m not giving them up. In fact . . .” She heaved a deep breath
and squared her shoulders. “I’m leaving the family.”

The front
door crashed against the wall, and both Shiya and Shae jumped. Shiya’s mouth
went dry seeing her brother standing there, and something told her he’d heard
her declaration. His nostrils flared, eyes slitted, and lips drawn back from
his teeth. He didn’t know it, but he looked just like one of the animals he
hated so much.

“Is that
you how feel, Shiya?” He advanced a step into the room, and it took all of her
willpower not to retreat. She stood her ground and nodded. He moved closer.
“You’re going to throw away the family who raised you, loved you, put food on
your table, and made sure you never once had to go out into the world and get
some menial job as some idiot’s secretary? No, you had everything you needed
from the day you were born. Now you get a taste of a creature, and you want to
throw it away. That’s what you’re saying to me?”

She put her
hands on her hips. “I think I was talking to my sister, and don’t act like I
was laying around all that time. I went to school and got my degree in computer
science. I was an integral part of building the network that feeds the family
information from all over the world regarding shifters, so don’t even try to
belittle me like I’m just some dumb woman waiting for the menfolk to take care
of me.”

He held up
his hands. “Oh no, don’t let me insult the computer princess. She might run and
tell Daddy.” Kasen snapped his fingers, and five men shuffled into the suite
and surrounded Shiya.

“What is
this, Kasen?” Shae demanded, standing.

Kasen
glared at her, but flicked his gaze back to Shiya. “This is me handling things
my
way.”

Shae
stepped forward, but one of the men grabbed her arm. She had his thumb in a
pinch that would render a regular man useless and have him on his knees at her
mercy in seconds. Kasen’s guy countered the move and had Shae by the back of
the neck. She elbowed him in the solar plexus, but he took the hit and blocked
more. Over and over, they fought until another of the men joined the first, and
they restrained Shae. Shiya saw the fury in her sister’s face. There would be
hell to pay making her look like a fool.

“Stay out
of this, Shae,” Kasen told her. “Shiya’s going to lure those two guys to me,
and then I will deal with them and their families.”

Shiya
crossed her arms. “I’m not helping you do a damn thing.”

She didn’t
see the slap coming. One minute she stood on her feet, and the next she landed
on her ass with her cheek stinging. She leaped up to go after Kasen, but two
men held her back by her arms. Kasen stood over her.

“You’re
going to learn your place, girl.”

“And you’re
going to learn what it means to put your hands on me.”

His brows
rose, and he laughed along with his boys. “Look at the little princess. She
thinks she can beat me.”

Shiya took
them all in, especially her brother. Her anger, bitterness, and hurt stood
above what she felt for him at that moment. “Not
me
.”

Kasen’s
smile froze when he realized whom she meant, but then he forced a smile. “Yeah,
okay. Get her out of here. The sooner I’m back home, the better. I’m missing my
baby.”

Shiya
shuffled ahead of the men holding her with Shae in the back shouting for Kasen
to leave her alone. Shiya went along for now. She didn’t know if what Kasen had
planned would work, but she would not be the cause of Birk and Kotori falling
into his trap. She needed to escape, and then she would leave Juneau. If she
was gone, maybe they would be okay, and so would their people. She had no idea
where she would go, and like Kasen said, she’d never had a reason to get a
regular job. Well, she wasn’t lazy, and she knew her stuff. Someone would hire
her. Never seeing Shae again would hurt, but this was the best choice.

Outside,
Kasen shoved her into an SUV, and two of his men climbed in behind her. They
secured her hands behind her, and Kasen snapped on plasticuffs.

Shiya
winced. “Ouch, you dumbass. That’s too tight.”

Her brother
grinned at her, unrepentant.

“Quiet, you
traitor,” one of his men snapped.

She didn’t
know his name, not interacting much with Kasen’s men, but she saw the disgust
in his eyes. She tried wiggling her wrists to gain a bit more comfort, but it
was impossible. Even she knew a person needed to be trained to avoid cutting
off blood flow with this type of cuffs. Kasen made sure to train his men in
every area of their jobs. She wondered if the cuff would hold a shifter and if
they’d been obtained just for her.

Her brother
walked around to the driver seat, but he didn’t get in. He held the door for
one of his men, and when the guy was settled, Kasen thumped the doorframe. “Get
her to the location we set up. I’ll meet you there. I’m expecting this to be
wrapped up in time for dinner.”

“You got
it, boss.”

Not long
after, Shiya watched Juneau fade into the distance through the rearview mirror.

Birk
slammed a fist on his desk, and the wood splintered in every direction. The
sides collapsed. The top snapped in half and caved to the floor. Papers, pens,
and other paraphernalia he’d had on top sank into a pile. None of it mattered.
Not the fact that he’d just bought this particular piece of furniture, or the
explosive noise he’d made with its destruction.